As the Fringe team investigates a mentally ill patient who appears to be connected to a series of murders, frightening clues and connections are uncovered that lead Olivia to some shocking revelations.

How do you rate the Fringe episode "A Better Human Being"?

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Comments:

I'll send my hospital bill to Wyman & Pinkner, since I just had a heart attack after watching this episode. Holy crap, the end had my jaw on the ground and saying WTF??? Again, you guys absolutely blew my mind! Great job :)

See Fringeobsessed, if you read this, told you!and aydee, right there with you. Can't breathe, heart skipping, need some cortexiphan, and oxygen.Will be watching the preview all week long and can't wait for sneak peeks.Ok, got to watch again and take notes, breathe in, breathe out...Fringe Rocks and it better get renewed!

Hi I am new to posting but love this site and Fringe. Ive just seen this ep (in UK) and I just loved it, my heart skipped oh yeah! All my theories have gone a bit off track now, dammit! Anyway about Henry glyph - maybe its the casting of losts Henry Ian Cusick? Dont think I spelt it right but possibility right? I sooooo hope fringge gets renewed....FOX dont take UK into account though!

Just a thought: the Nina Sharp we've been seeing all season might be Alt-Nina's Shape Shifter Nina or Alt-Nina herself. We've never seen her other version so I guess both of my assumptions have, well, some merit.

The Henry gylph really disturbed me! I mean, Peter didn't even know he had a son with Bolivia back in his "own" timeline, and it would just be chaotic if baby Henry came out of the blue in the other universe. (Starting to imagine Bolivia's belly rapidly bulging and then voila! Baby Henry!)

I still stick to my theory that we're not in a whole new timeline at all. That this IS and has always been the only timeline we got, and Peter just got literally erased from it and that this place he refers as his "home" has always been this one, with this Walter and the kidnapped Olivia.

And now?! As was to happen, what happened? Olivia, with all that deep look of love, by Peter, corresponds to kiss him after he sees the car, and says: "I need to pee!" Leaves, the station enters the shop, and ... disappears. Come on, that definitely was not the time of Olivia go to the toilet. It was like a "cut" that special moment between the two, is not it?! Peter, was simply dumbfounded with that output, that "escaped" from Olivia. No doubt, there's something behind this "output" of Olivia, ah, of course it has. Then she appears tied to a chair in front of Nina! Not sure who is who. It will, which Olivia, which Nina? WOW! I also blew my mind, and I'm with aydee, this episode demonstrates the high level of excellent work done by the two showrunners and writers of Fringe!

I loved watching Peter's face in the scenes with Olivia. He was wrestling with desires and demons from two timelines, and you could see that playing out in his expressions. Nice job Josh.

In a way Peter and Olivia's positions in 4.13 are reversed from their last struggle to get together in the aftermath of the "Over There" arc of Season 3. In S03 Peter wanted the relationship and Olivia was conflicted. This time Olivia wants to go full speed ahead, as someone who has suddenly had the veil ripped from reality and is seeing it for the first time. And it is Peter who is conflicted. He overcame it in one episode, which makes me wonder if he has been struggling with this since earlier in S04. Maybe when he asked Olivia if she knew him or felt anything about him in her dreams about him (4.06 "And Those We've Left Behind"), he was looking for more than information.

Olivia wanting to move ahead, heedless of caution, reminded me of the heady confidence she displayed at the end of "LSD" when she took that bite of toast. She suddenly seemed unburdened for the first time as Amberlivia.

Seems like Blair Brown is the one who gets to do all the WTF? endings this season. So who's faking who? Are the captive Olivia and Nina the "real" ones? And from which timeline? Are the ones we've been seeing in S04 fakes? Replacements? Clones? Shapeshifters? Did the gas station attendant not see Olivia because she was never really there?

For that matter, is the whole Amber timeline an elaborate fake, chimera, or Matrix thingy? I remember some commenter here proposing as much.

I have a strong feeling that Jones is on the other side of the door to the room Olivia and Nina are trapped in.

The undoubted highlight of next week has to be Peter going into September's brain like Olivia did with John Scott. I want front row tickets for that, price be damned! I wonder if Peter will be the one to suggest to Walter that he try this, like his suggestion to hypnotize Emily in "Forced Perspective". His knowledge of both timelines gives him an almost Observer perspective.

One of my favorite things about this episode is that Walter and Peter's emotions and feelings for each other and Peter's for Olivia cloud their ability to be perfect rationalists who are able to figure out anything, so they don't know what's going on, it's amazing.

Another thing that was sweeeeet about this ep was when astrid was talkin to the telepath kid at 43:11 and the cafeteria was populated with patients muttering and talking to each other, and then when the kid says he could hear the voices at that moment, and the camera panned out and the cafeteria was empty! watch it again if you didnt notice, it's haunting.

I'm thinking, like most of you, that the evil Nina we've been seeing all season, doping up Olivia, is a shape-shifter working for Jones. Seeing her two hands whole was a big tip-off. However, I don't think Olivia is a shapeshifter, with exception to the one that might show up again at that gas station in the next ep. DRJ set up an alt-universe portal somewhere around the gas station and Olivia walked right through. Those of you who think something was up when Olivia had to pee aren't nervous dorks! I knew something bad was bound to happen when she left the car, but I had to laugh out loud when she couldn't hold it anymore. Though I was really hoping for all 200 of the hive-mind boys to show up and chase P/O or the doctor together (wouldn't that have been awesome?), this was a great episode.

Are you sure we shouldn't start sending letters to Fox, begging for one more season? House just got cancelled. Do you really not want to try? I'm thinking about sending what appears to be a half-eaten red vine (just ripped off, in a ziploc bag), with a message something like this: "Nobody wants part of a red vine and fans don't want part of a story. A partial piece isn't satisfying, if anyone would want to eat it at all. Please give Fringe another season to finish the story. As a devoted fan who watches live, I believe the value of the show would be compromised if it was ended without conclusion. The writers have imagined the impossibilities; give them a chance to show the viewers. I have to believe in hope... that you'll give us the ending we, and this excellent show, deserve."

The romance of Olivia and Peter is so stale and I think that their prolonged love drama may be the reason ratings have dropped so much. I don’t want to marginalize the fans who are still dedicated to watching them almost-but-not-quite be together after 3-4 years. That is dedication and I think these people deserve the story they want. They should have got it last season! The producers have been explaining repeatedly in interviews that it would be boring to watch Olivia and Peter together, that the endless build-up is what WE want to see. I was hopeful as any fan for them to be happy together, or as happy as two lovebirds can be chasing GM lab monster break-outs in the Boston sewer system. But that was two seasons ago! I find myself far more interested in all the other characters, than in Olivia and Peter, simply because they all are doing something NEW. I adore Lincoln, he’s NEW. Thank god......I don’t think I’m going to be tuning in live this week! I never thought I’d lose interest so quickly after so many years, but with this episode come and gone I just don’t care that much anymore. The actors are so fantastic and I credit them with keeping me this long.

wetcat said... Are you sure we shouldn't start sending letters to Fox, begging for one more season? House just got cancelled.

First of all, House didn't get cancelled by FOX... Hugh Laurie and the producers of the show Katie Jacobs and David Shore decided the show has gone on long enough and want to end it. See: the House press release here

I wouldn't waste your time writing letters to FOX. In fact, Fox Entertainment president Kevin Reilly specifically said not to write letters - they already know Fringe has a loyal fan base. Fringe ratings have been holding pretty steady, so there's a good chance that it will get renewed. The best way you can support Fringe is watch live, get your friends to watch live, and to participate in our Support Fringe campaigns every week...

Me too, I see good chances of renewal for a fifth season of Fringe. I know it's a feeling, a fan, like me, but I see or feel, good perspectives for this. FOX has with the show Fringe, the placement of programming a day, considered bad to good ratings, it has (already demonstrated) insurance 3 million per episode of assistants, a group of companies that advertise in these series, has remained in quantity and quality, a good and constant commercialization of DVR's, and so on. I think the problem is cost, which somehow will be cut, I think. But I'm optimistic.

Denis~ If you remember from the very first episode of Fringe, "Pilot", Nina wears a life-like skin covering over her robotic hand, so it is not possible to tell just by looking if her hand is real or not.

In the many of the episodes she wears the black gloves to cover it up. Also why would she have to use both hands on a key pad. That was done to show us something. It also explains a lot about what has been going on and introduces us to the long awaited ALT NINA! Either was there is an alt Nina in the works even if it is as an imposter in Massive dynamic or as a fake prisoner to screw with Olivia's mind. Personally I am rooting for Oliva to pull a Carrie and blow things up with her mind like she did as a child.

It's not a different timeline, there's no way, September was supposed to erase Peter from existence completely, but he DIDN'T. It's like a half timeline, I know that Nina is a Shape-Shifter, like I said above, the name "Nina" was on the list of shapeshifters in season 3

That would have made her a generation ONE shapeshifter if you base it on season 3, not a generation two. Walternate would have control over the generation one shifters. I would also point out many fans have expressed a deep desire to see an Alt-Nina. There was no reason to have her use two hands for a code as the key pad was not going by finger prints, so there was something they wanted us to notice. If nothign more the Scene has cause many posts already. which shows people are watching.